Sunday, July 26, 2009

New York Times says: An acid freak’s fantasy, drenched in paranoia and more pop-culture allusions than a Dennis Miller monologue

So I’ve got myself a modded Wii and I’m playing the American version of No More Heroes (because the UK version was butchered by the censors – those bastards), and it made me think again about the similarities between Suda 51’s work and the Oliver Stone creation, Wild Palms. (If you’re wondering why these screengrabs look so grainy, I thought it would be cool to give them a kind of Sega CD vibe)

Is that a rhino in your pool?

For those who’ve never seen it, Wild Palms was a surreal, abstract, Twin Peaks styled Sci-Fi TV-series and/or film trilogy from 1993 (depending on which country you saw it in – South Africa’s MNet ran it has a multipart film over three days). It’s about 280 minutes long. That’s about 4 and a half hours. It was produced by Oliver Stone and written by Bruce Wagner (apparently he based it on a comic strip he’d written prior, says Wikipedia), and it starred James Belushi and Kim Cattrall, long before she started having Sex in the City.

Do not trust the TV sets, and old ghosts come to life through holograms

And damn, was it one helluva weird film. WEIRD.

I’ve not played Suda’s earlier works such as Moonlight Syndrome and Silver Case (both on PS1), but Killer 7, Flower Sun and Rain, and now No More Heroes, all bear striking similarities, both thematically and stylistically, to Wild Palms. As an aside, Michigan: Report from Hell doesn’t really bear much resemblance to any of the above – though it’s still an interesting and extremely weird game.

A woman in white with a blood stain will show the way

The story of Wild Palms follows Henry Wyckoff as he slowly slips into madness, tormented by dreams involving a rhinoceros in his swimming pool, terrorists living under his pool, a global conspiracy to control society via TV, drug addiction, murder, and shocking secrets about his past, his family, and the history of America. I’m going to say it’s the biggest mind**** I have ever watched, and although I’ve never read any interview that says Suda 51 actually watched it himself, Wild Palms has the kind of insane, incestuous plot twists that he’d seriously get off on if he did.

I’d like to mention more, to encourage you to watch it, but to reveal anything would spoil the surprise.

In the rough part of town, Henry goes to a place called Hungry Ghosts to find the truth

COMPARISONS

The biggest comparison is obviously that Wild Palms and Killer 7 both feature swimming pools with secret chambers under them, plus the fact that most of Suda’s games contain palm trees, but there’s a lot more going on beyond the plainly visual. It also has to be said that games like Flower, Sun and Rain also borrow heavily from films like Groundhog’s Day.

Wild Palms deals with the subversion of reality, of not knowing what is real and what is virtual. In Suda’s games you’re constantly given the impression of being in a semi-dream state, and made to question reality.

There’s that rhino again

In all works there are strong themes relating to corporate and media evil. Can you really trust those in charge? Not really. Visually we have TV sets, broadcasting subliminal messages and housing the personalities of other people. In Wild Palms, the people in your TV are able to step out and touch you.

In a way, No More Heroes’ Travis Touchdown and Flower, Sun and Rain’s Sumio Mondo both mirror Henry Wyckoff, as unknowing pawns getting into things deeper than they can understand.

This man will die by swallowing a fist

Here’s a spotlist of things off the top of my head I’ve seen in Wild Palms and Suda’s works:* visual metaphors* churches* god complexes* immortality* media control* subliminal messaging* possessed TV sets* blind people made to see* kids with knives* drugs and serums* holograms* amnesia and the loss of one’s thoughts* virtual reality and artificial worlds as real as this one* woman in a white dress with a giant blood stain* humans disintegrating in particle explosions (though, Lawnmower Man also did this)* being unable to wake from a dream* LA surrealism* celebrity worship* strange, eccentric characters* terrorism* paranoia, and a world on the brink of chaos and revolution* lies, deception, trickery and enough red herrings to make your head hurt* Obviously... palm trees

There’s more, A LOT MORE, and Killer 7’s narrative alone warrants its own article, but if you like any of Suda 51’s games, or the themes or characterisations found within, then you should really track down Wild Palms on DVD and watch it. Even if there isn’t actually a connection with Suda 51, Wild Palms is worth watching in its own right.

Just don’t expect to come away understanding everything.

PS: Oh, and if you’re a member of the press interviewing him, for god’s sake, ask him about this!

8 comments:

Very cool post. I'm actually not too familiar with many David Lynch movies, but apparently they played pretty big inspirations. I've also heard Killer7 was inspired by the movie El Topo by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and FSR and The Silver Case by The Profound Desire of the Gods by Imamura Shohei. I'm not at all familiar with either of these, but apparently the latter has a lot to do with Japan's cultural identity post-WWII. Given Killer7's plot (and apparently FSR's, I haven't played nearly of it to say for myself), that would certainly make sure.

Ahh, interesting. I was wholly unaware of those other film references.

But having read a description of El Topo, I can believe there is some connection.

There's probably scope for an ultra epic article on how films have influenced games in obscure ways, Kojima being the more obvious example (he borrowed HUGE amounts from the MacGuyver TV series!), and Suda 51 being another. I also recall a web story on how all of Street Fighter's characters were in fact based on real-life people.

El Topo description taken from a really rubbish Hotmail article:"What’s The Story? Ultraviolent, black-clad gunslinger El Topo avenges the slaughter of a small town’s inhabitants, and is then injured in a face-off with four grandmasters of pistol-duelling.Years later, he’s rescued by mutant dwarves and sets off to liberate his keepers from their underground hidey-hole.Everyone gets killed by more outlaws and El Topo burns himself alive.What’s It About? It's a lateral metaphor on the Old and New Testaments. The grandmasters are the prophets Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah while El Topo, naturally, is ol’ JC."

Wow, I never seen Wild Palms. It sounds like an awesome movie, and a definite inspiration for Suda's work.

I’ve not played Suda’s earlier works such as Moonlight Syndrome and Silver Case (both on PS1), but Killer 7, Flower Sun and Rain, and now No More Heroes, all bear striking similarities, both thematically and stylistically, to Wild Palms. As an aside, Michigan: Report from Hell doesn’t really bear much resemblance to any of the above –"quoteYou can add Moonlight Syndrome, & Silver Case to the list, because they too follow the patterns that you described in this post.

There's a reason for this actually. Prior to Killer 7, Suda 51 used to claim that Moonlight Syndrome, Silver Case, & FSR are part of a trilogy.I may have read him wrong though. Since Moonlight Syndrome itself is supposed to be the conclusion to the original Twilight Syndrome trilogy.

Although most Twilight fans generally regard Moonlight Syndrome as a bad dream. Which is funny, because Silver Case acts as if Moonlight Syndrome actually did happen, and even kills off the remaining protagonists during the intro chapter of Silver Case. (Both of whom seemed to have gone mentally insane after experiencing the events of Moonlight Syndrome.)

Quote"and FSR and The Silver Case by The Profound Desire of the Gods by Imamura Shohei."QuoteWhile an argument could be made for FSR's similarities Desire of the Gods, I'm going to have to say that SC doesn't share much resemblance with that film.At my forum K7 SIN we've concluded that although Suda liberally borrows or steals scenes from other movies. His work seems to be mostly based off of Ainu spirituality, & perhaps even the plight of their historical relationship with the modern day Japanese.

Silver Case seems to be more inspired by Lynch's Twin Peaks than anything else.Even then Silver Case is really just an alternate timeline that branched off of the Twilight Syndrome games.SC, and even FSR are actually a direct continuation of the narrative that was concluded in Moonlight Syndrome.

In fact the main antagonist of Moonlight Syndrome Yayoi Itsushima, actually appeared during FSR as a random guest named Yayoi Hanayama.(She's never explicitly pointed out as the main antagonist of MS. It's just something that you piece together when you think back about what occurred during the game.)One of the writers from Unseen64 directed me to some beta pics of FSR that definitely seemed to have been expanding on the mindfuck ending of MS. (It's just too bad that none of it made the final cut.)

The other main antagonist (Mithra) from MS showed up in Killer 7 as the twin kids during a cutscene in alter ego.

Quote"In a way, No More Heroes’ Travis Touchdown and Flower, Sun and Rain’s Sumio Mondo both mirror Henry Wyckoff, as unknowing pawns getting into things deeper than they can understand."QuoteThis may be spoiler territory here, but the whole thing with Sumio Mondo in FSR is that he's actually Sumio Kodai from Silver Case.

A former detective,and currently (In FSR at least. I have no idea what Sumio's status is during SC 25 Ward,) a convicted terrorist. The ending of FSR implies that his friend Tetsuguro Kusabi (The man who disquises himself as Peter.) bailed Sumio out of jail shortly after SC ended.

I'd like to go on about the subject of Toriko Kusabi since I feel that she's very relevant to your post. She embodies everything that you've jotted down in your spotlist.The problem is that I have no idea how to describe her.She's either Tetsuguro's legitimate daughter.A ghost.A mental projection, or memory.A goddess.A clone. (There's several Kyoko look alikes in SC 25 Ward. All of which have names that sound similar to Toriko.)All of the above.

I myself think that she's supposed to be a clone of a younger Kyoko Kazan from Moonlight Syndrome. (She's the girl who dies in a traffic accident during the beginning of MS. Essentially it was her death that started this whole alternate timeline that Suda 51 devised for his GHM games.)

All this Toriko talk is stupid speculation on my part though._________________Thanks for the insight on Wild Palms.This is the first I've ever heard of it, and it also seems to be the most similar to Suda's body of work that I ever seen.

Quote"(She's never explicitly pointed out as the main antagonist of MS. It's just something that you piece together when you think back about what occurred during the game.)"QuoteTo clarify what I meant is that Yayoi is never explicitly pointed out as the main antagonist of MS during the game MS. She's merely a guest during FSR which is realistic, because nobody in that timeline is aware of any implications of Yayoi's involvement during MS.

The three people who would know all died during Silver Case. (A game where Yayoi was conspicously absent.)

I've only recently checked back to see the comments here, but thanks for posting.

I appreciate the informative write up on Suda's other games which I've not had a chance to play yet. Actually, I've not really seen anything written about them on the internet, so this is quite valuable. Most interesting!

Perhaps you should contact Kurt on HG101 about writing something on Suda's work?

like im going down the list and most of those are just standard theological symbolisms, downright didn't occur in suda's games, were insignificant as hell... you can draw comparisons to a lot of art house movies for surreal qualities and what not but it seems like you pulled those comparisons out of your ass